What good is "spreading the wealth around."?

That’s the extreme form of spreading the wealth, aka Communism.

The least extreme idea is that the middle and lower classes are closer to equal with the upper. So if you have happy workers, then you have happy rich people, and then you have a happy economy, and then a happy nation with lots of money.

In my opinion, just because a person makes less money absolutely does not always mean they are working less hard. On the contrary, lower income people work very hard doing the jobs a lot of people will not do. I also believe that many people making more than enough money will not or should not have a problem paying close to nothing more in taxes. Helping people and the country is going to take a lot of work from everyone and if that is the price the priveleged have to pay then so be it. If they don’t choose to work as hard to make less taxable income then that will be their loss.

So in the case of Citi Bank getting 20 Billion Dollars this morning, following the 25 Billion from last week, is spreading the wealth to Citi Bank a bad thing? Will Citi Bank reps work less hard?
Is Merril and Goldman Sacks working less hard or not competing now?
I don’t get it

What about people who are working hard and not making very much money? Those are more and more common nowadays, as well as their brethren, the people who worked very hard until they got laid off and are now working hard to find a job.

If you study the history of some countries (France and Russia spring to mind), you will see that the greater the disparity between the Haves and Have-Nots, the greater the chance there is for social unrest. When people can’t eat because they don’t have any money, and there aren’t any chances to get money, the rich folks suddenly look like very fat, stationary targets.

The more even things are in general (even with people not all having the same), the less likely people are to want to overturn society.

Wait until Americans figure out that they are no longer middle class, and that they don’t get middle class things or for thier children…a pissed off joe-six pack is not a pretty thing

Let’s take the example of someone I work with. He makes great money, has a huge house, owns giant cars…..and yes, he works very hard for it. He also says “I want to keep my own money” and so doesn’t tend to give to charity, etc. That’s his prerogative.

But what if he didn’t have parents that could afford to put him through college? Well, yes, he could’ve gotten loans and scholarships. But what if he had a parent (or a child) with a severe illness that wasn’t adequately covered by health insurance? What if he had to make the hard decision of quitting school and working to support his family or pay the medical bills? Has this “alternate-universe-him” worked less hard? My guess would be that this person works harder and longer and barely manages to keep his head above water.

It can be a stretch to expand this to a government level, bail out the corporations event, but it’s an indicator of an attitude or a mind-set; if we’re a society of “me, me, me, mine, mine, mine”, what is the value of our society?

And don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge believer in accountability. CEO’s getting hundreds of millions in severance packages? F*ck that sh*t.

I just heard that the Treasury was giving out tens of billions to banks whether they needed it or not so as not to draw attention to the ones that were in the worst shape. Its interesting how there is always enough money to spread around when people with money want to do it, but not so much when it comes to national health care. The bailout of AIG alone would have covered the bill for national health care.

But, don’t worry, the problem simply won’t be fixed until they fix all those 10 million predatory mortgages still out there.

It’s not a good idea. One step closer to communism if you ask me.

@aanuszek1: If every step closer to Communism is bad, do you prefer a pure free market capitalist system? We (in the U.S.) haven’t had thayt for years and years, but you may want to check out Somalia. They’re somewhat closer to your ideal.